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The Jungle: A Signature Performance by Casey Affleck
- Narrated by: Casey Affleck
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
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How the Other Half Lives
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- Narrated by: Bobby Brill
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
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Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to How the Other Half Lives and learn about the conditions of abject poverty that the residents of the slums of New York at the end of the 19th century had to endure.
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Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy
- O Pioneers! - The Song of the Lark - My Antonia
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Sara Nichols
- Length: 29 hrs and 43 mins
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The Prairie Trilogy is a series of three novels centered around life in the Midwest during the late 19th/early 20th centuries by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather. First, in "O Pioneers!," we meet Alexandra Bergson, who inherits the family farm after her father dies and leaves her to care for her three siblings. While many immigrant families are giving up their farms and moving back to the city (or to their home countries), Alexandra decides to try to tough it out on the prairie.
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
- By: Arthur Conan Doyle
- Narrated by: Bob Neufeld
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
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"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" The death, quite suddenly, of Sir Charles Baskerville in mysterious circumstances is the trigger for one of the most extraordinary cases ever to challenge the brilliant analytical mind of Sherlock Holmes. As rumours of a legendary hound said to haunt the Baskerville family circulate, Holmes and Watson are asked to ensure the protection of Sir Charles' only heir, Sir Henry - who has travelled all the way from America to reside at Baskerville Hall in Devon.
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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great story poorly presented
- By Richard Try on 11-05-2015
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The Old Man and the Sea
- By: Ernest Hemingway
- Narrated by: Donald Sutherland
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal, a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss.
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Character building
- By Damien Carson on 16-10-2018
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Hard Times
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.
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Martin Jarvis does it again
- By anthony on 15-09-2019
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How the Other Half Lives
- Studies Among the Tenements of New York
- By: Jacob A. Riis
- Narrated by: Bobby Brill
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to How the Other Half Lives and learn about the conditions of abject poverty that the residents of the slums of New York at the end of the 19th century had to endure.
-
Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy
- O Pioneers! - The Song of the Lark - My Antonia
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Sara Nichols
- Length: 29 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Prairie Trilogy is a series of three novels centered around life in the Midwest during the late 19th/early 20th centuries by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather. First, in "O Pioneers!," we meet Alexandra Bergson, who inherits the family farm after her father dies and leaves her to care for her three siblings. While many immigrant families are giving up their farms and moving back to the city (or to their home countries), Alexandra decides to try to tough it out on the prairie.
-
The Hound of the Baskervilles
- By: Arthur Conan Doyle
- Narrated by: Bob Neufeld
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" The death, quite suddenly, of Sir Charles Baskerville in mysterious circumstances is the trigger for one of the most extraordinary cases ever to challenge the brilliant analytical mind of Sherlock Holmes. As rumours of a legendary hound said to haunt the Baskerville family circulate, Holmes and Watson are asked to ensure the protection of Sir Charles' only heir, Sir Henry - who has travelled all the way from America to reside at Baskerville Hall in Devon.
-
Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
-
-
great story poorly presented
- By Richard Try on 11-05-2015
-
The Old Man and the Sea
- By: Ernest Hemingway
- Narrated by: Donald Sutherland
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal, a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss.
-
-
Character building
- By Damien Carson on 16-10-2018
-
Hard Times
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.
-
-
Martin Jarvis does it again
- By anthony on 15-09-2019
Editorial reviews
Rarely has a novel so completely captured America at a crossroads as has Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It follows Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus and his family through an epic journey from their impoverished homeland to America and the promised land of the Chicago stockyards. The promise of freedom and prosperity soon fades though as Jurgis and his family are trapped in a cycle of grinding poverty, sickness, and brutal working conditions.
Though beautifully written, the tone of the story is oppressive — but that's pretty much the point. Jurgis is transformed from a proud, hard-working man to a broken, used-up shell. The stockyard factories take everything a worker has and then tosses them aside. Interspersed throughout the main storyline we also find whole chapters cataloging corruption and the horrific working conditions of the time; other chapters detail the gruesome and grossly unsanitary practices of the meat industry. The Jungle did lead to many important reforms in food safety laws and even eventually to the creation of the FDA. Sinclair had hoped his novel would serve as a call for labor reform and towards the end it does become a bit of a love letter to socialism. The Jungle did however highlight very real labor problems and Chicago would become a center for union activity and labor reform.
I wasn’t sure what to expect with Casey Affleck as narrator, yet he quickly won me over. He brings a very necessary everyman feel to the story, a much-needed human touch to the material that often takes you to very inhuman places. His reading of one of the pivotal scenes where a childbirth goes horribly wrong is one of the most utterly devastating, yet touching performances you will ever hear. Affleck brings an incredible depth and understanding as well as a welcome subtlety to much of the reading. In lesser hands this material could have been easily overplayed and maudlin. Affleck's buy-in and commitment to the characters and story are palpable.
Sometimes it's important to revisit our own history, and many of the issues addressed in The Jungle are important and fiercely debated topics again today. Lest we forget our past, The Jungle is here to remind us of a rather dark part of our history and some of the flaws and weaknesses in our own humanity. —Cleo Creech
Publisher's Summary
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is a visceral and tragic story of immigrants trying to scratch out a living in the meatpacking plants of Chicago. The resulting public outcry led directly to the US government enacting changes in food and workplace safety practices still in place today.
With food production, business ethics, and immigration back in the news, Academy Award nominee Casey Affleck (Gone Baby Gone) taps into the emotion behind these issues to breathe life back into the struggling inhabitants of Packingtown. Affleck, a committed vegan and animal rights spokesman, delivers a moving performance that connects with the book’s enduring legacy.
The Jungle revolves around the life and family of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant whose dreams of a better life are crushed by punishing work in gruesome stockyards and an unforgiving city. Brilliantly written and vividly described, it provides a poignant and incredibly detailed snapshot of a striking point in American history.